


The Passage of Time

by feliciacraft



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, Community: tamingthemuse, F/M, LiveJournal Prompt, Resurrection, Romance, Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 17:23:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3904612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feliciacraft/pseuds/feliciacraft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Things she used to take for granted had become mysteries. For instance: the passage of time.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>A newly resurrected Buffy considers the tricky, slippery thing that is time. Set in early Season 6.</p><p>Compliant with the <i><a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/3625725">Edge of Sorrow, Heart of Truth</a></i> long fic. Can be considered a look-ahead scene that takes place in the same 'verse. If you're not following that story, this may be interpreted as canon-compliant too (which places the story a little later in Season 6).</p><p>Written for the LiveJournal community TamingTheMuse (prompt #457 - "Fugacious").</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Passage of Time

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by: All4Spike.
> 
> Distribution: No posting elsewhere without express permission please. No translations por favor.
> 
> Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Things she used to take for granted had become mysteries.

For instance: the passage of time. Sometimes it dribbled, drip drop, drip drop, seemingly teetering on the brink of running dry, a possibility that fascinated her: what would happen when it did? Would everything just...stop? A lovely thought, that was, but it never lingered, for time itself was fugacious...wasn’t it?

Although sometimes time leaped, forward or backward she could not always tell. One moment she’d be waving goodbye to Dawn, who was late to school, as usual--truancy apparently ran in the family. The departure she welcomed; if she could muster the strength and put in the effort to feel, she could almost be called giddy with relief, for with it came the permission to finally let go, for minutes or hours, though never days at a time. The empty house--unlike her loved ones, or those who claimed to love her--withheld judgement as it observed everything, withstood everything. The deaths and the resurrection, all of which a terrible mistake, and the house had survived them all. So she sat alone in its shelter, unmoving, unthinking, all day, letting the silence and the stillness stand in as a poor substitute for peace, while the house gradually brightened with diffused light through the curtains, then just as gradually, darkened once more.

On some days, time folded onto itself as she hugged a cup at the kitchen counter, as she used to do with a cup of Mom’s hot cocoa: letting the rich, sweet aroma saturate the kitchen and waft into the rest of the house; watching the steam rise up in an intricate filigree, and the marshmallows melt into dense, white foam. Only now the cup would be as dry as her mouth--she couldn’t decide whether to make hot cocoa or tea or...did she used to drink coffee? Was that the more appropriate drink for the morning? Would that make it look like she was herself again? Would _they_ leave her alone if only she drank coffee every morning?

Then she’d turn around to see the Scoobies suddenly gathered around the living room, apparently there for the traditional Sunday night shindig--Chinese or Mexican or pizza, that old standby--a new tradition they’d established in her absence, while she was dead. It startled her, that realization: she’d been dead long enough for there to have been new traditions formed, new alliances forged, new in-jokes for which she required explanations, their context invariably planted in a time that shouldn’t have been yet was. And she was just supposed to accept everything, including herself, in its new state, as everyone else did. Unless it was excepting herself, her new self? Because they’d wanted the old Buffy back, the one they’d bothered to resurrect, only they didn’t know they’d be getting a bum deal. She wondered if Willow hadn’t been hiding a mild case of buyer’s remorse.

A hundred and forty-seven days she’d been gone, as Spike had told her, the precision such a shock. It should’ve been flattering that he had bothered to tally her absences, but instead, she felt catalogued, measured, quantified, and labeled, like a rare specimen put on display in a museum. Her release had felt so complete, her peace so boundless, her bliss so infinite that she spurned the pigeonholing of time imposed on the most elated experience of her existence and nonexistence combined. Perfection could not have been limited to a hundred and forty-seven days, that blasphemous number. Eternity should be eternal, and not gone in the blink of an eye.

On that thought she blinked, just to see if an eternity would spend itself in the space allotted, only to realize that time had tricked her again. Gone were the Scoobies, their weekend gathering apparently long concluded. Another time had descended on her: she was in bed, Spike’s bed. And so was he--above her, inside her, in a lover’s guise, wearing a lover’s face. She flexed her fingers as a test, before time could shift her to another frame of her life, and felt hard muscles extend and contrast in their grasp, cool to the touch but so solid--how could a dead body produce movements so real? How could intimacy with a demon be her reality? Wasn’t she supposed to be…? Oh, but she was supposed to be dead, only she wasn’t. And he was supposed to be dead too, only he wasn’t, either. Heaven’s reject and Hell-bound fiend--weren’t they a pair?

If only reality were so neat and tidy. Life baffled her, but if she knew one thing, it was that she could be honest with him. What were they to each other, that deception was not a concern, that betrayal was not a concern? And how dare he, with eyes so human it was wrong, and caresses so tender they should not burn, make her feel when she longed to be numb? And how could he, with a love that defied reason, and passion that could not be refuted, reach her when she had retreated from everyone else, everything else? And it felt so good, so _right_ , if she could take command of time, that slippery thing, and hold on, and bend it to her will, it would almost contend to be…a piece of Heaven, right here, right now.

Oh, but then it threatened to unravel again, and she could not tighten her fist enough to grasp the sands of time, and then she was undone, fluttering around him as he shuddered deep inside her. She felt, more than heard, a declaration of love, breathed into her pulse point, safely hidden among fervent kisses, and drowned out by her own cry of release.

Then she was drifting, weightless despite the heavy body collapsed on top of hers, but the solace and the certainty were already slipping. She must hold on, more than anything, she must--

“I can’t...” she gasped.

“Shhh…” he consoled her. With a quick roll he reversed their positions, held her, stroked her tensing arms. The bedsheet was knotted in her hands, and he covered them with his own, running feather-light caresses over locked digits. She relented, then just as quickly, recalled his orgasmic declaration.

Panic. Yet another thing expected of her, no doubt. Another thing she couldn’t.

“I can’t--” she began again. He had to understand. He must.

“Shhh… Don’t fret, love…”

“But I don’t…” This time he didn’t interrupt, and she couldn’t finish. Nothing against honesty, but she couldn’t bring herself to inflict pain anymore. This was not a battlefield, even if she was doomed to play the warrior, for ever and ever. Burying her face in the crook of his neck, she swallowed those words. She willed time to leap again, onward or backward she did not care.

His hand in her hair, combed through the strands, tender, reverent, soothing, measuring out time by the length of her locks.

“Don’t need to,” he said eventually, his tone quiet so that the mood was unspoiled, the spell unbroken. “You do too much, love. Don’t have to do everything, y’know.”

She didn’t know. These days, the constant struggle to meet everyone’s expectations left her breathless. Was it always like this? Was it...before?

She was the reverse Walter Mitty--destined to lead as the hero, while she craved an ordinary life, where she could fade into the background, be just a girl. A girl seeking solace in the arms of the boy who loved her--was that why she had allowed _him_ into her life?

“For the record,” he said, the slightest pause in the repetition of his hand through her hair, “you _can_ , too. But you don’t need to.”

She pretended not to know what he meant, but the reassurance steadied her heartbeat, evened out her breathing. She waited for everything to fade away, as things were wont to do. If she waited long enough, she’d outlast time.

She was less sure that she could outlast his love. But that would be of the all right.

 

~ The End (Or, if you're following "Edge of Sorrow, Heart of Truth", then TBC there) ~


End file.
